Blazing New Trails - Connexions

204 CRITICAL ISSUES IN PROMOTING ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT
The 16 young students enjoy watching corn stalks grow which they have planted and
are caring for, churning butter, and exploring the mysteries of magnetism. They also
blow soap bubbles, inflate balloons, and inner tubes to aid their learning of air and
friction.
Later, Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, Jerome Bruner, Maria Montessori, and Erik
Erikson’s work influenced the instructional program (Mooney, 2000). The child was the
focus, and the teaching intent was reiterated by a teacher of the early childhood lab, “The
instructional program was to teach the whole child in a constructivist, discovery-based setting
by taking the children where they were, accepting them on whatever level they were, and
working from a positive stance instead of a negative one.”
One instructional delivery method present from the beginning of the kindergarten
setting to the present day was a learning centers’ approach as described by one Elementary
Education administrator, “There was always a strong emphasis on learning centers. The
learning centers are pretty much the same now, but more emphasis now is on literacy and
math skills.” Learning centers were developed as a method for children to guide and master
learning. Lab setting teachers and education faculty initiated a system of using symbol charts
to assist students in self-directed learning. One former lab teacher disclosed this system:
Rebus symbols had been around forever, but we took it to a different level so that we
could post them in the different learning centers to give children guidelines. They
could turn to the picture or symbol and text to find out what to do. These were called
symbol charts.
Furthermore, research-based and proven instructional strategies were implemented in
all of the lab settings, and in recent years, more cutting-edge constructivist strategies were the
focus as described by a charter school teacher:
We rely heavily on text, not textbooks that authors have written, such as, Lucy
Calkins, Ralph Fletcher, Katie Wood Ray, Kathy Richardson, and Catherine Fosnot.
Reading is based on Public Education and Business Coalition thinking strategies, the
work of Ellen Thorpe and Ellin Keene, Sam Bennett, Susan Zimmerman, and Patrick
Allen.
Constructivist practices of looking to the individual child, nurturing his or her curiosity
through learning centers, and implementing proven instructional strategies focusing on the
child as the learner were keys to the lab settings’ success.
Plan and Assess with a Purpose
Before curriculum alignment and assessment were used widely in the field of
education, developing an aligned curriculum and assessing curriculum standards were
priorities in the lab settings beginning with kindergarten. An early childhood expert was hired
to oversee and develop the kindergarten and early childhood lab settings. Through his wisdom
and expertise, a curriculum titled the Integrated Approach Design (IAD) was instituted. A
former Early Childhood Lab teacher described this curriculum, “Well, we had the same four
goals that we have now in terms of autonomy, openness, integrity, and problem-solving.